<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>People taking care of Melanie Cavill 'cause she needs it by Vuotoinblu</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961029">People taking care of Melanie Cavill 'cause she needs it</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vuotoinblu/pseuds/Vuotoinblu'>Vuotoinblu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Snowpiercer (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Overworking, Sleep Deprivation, Trust</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:56:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vuotoinblu/pseuds/Vuotoinblu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Melanie's friends take care her while she takes care of everything else.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>People taking care of Melanie Cavill 'cause she needs it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Melanie Cavill was tired and yet she knew she had no time to rest. Sleep deprivation was going to become an unpleasant habit for the woman but then, on the third week of the first revolution of Snowpiercer, not only she didn't knowit, but actually welcomed gladly the unending tasks that forced her awake, keeping her from stopping and thinking of who she left to die in the cold outside world.  She didn't have the luxury to spend hours drunkenly crying in the night car or watching sadly through the thick glass that kept them separed from the deadly cold or screaming her anger to the whole train like a lot of other passengers seemed to be doing in their free time. Snowpiercer needed to keep working. Melanie sacrificed everything to the train and she wasn't going to let her fail her task. Everything had to be under control. Everyone needed to do their job, to behave. Life needed order and she was providing it. After pushing the people that infiltrated the train to the tail and making adjustments to the various food rotations to accommodate their most basic needs she had forced third class' passengers to stop grieving and start working. She told them that the train needed them, that Wilford needed them and luckily most of them listened. Then first class started bothering her. The rooms weren't comfortable enough, the water wasn't hot enough, their favourite wine weren't stocked on the train...</p><p>
  <em>Her daughter was dead and she had to worry about some rich asshole's wine preference</em>
</p><p>So she bargained with them, convinced them that they didn't need the wine, explained them that the water was going to be hotter when the train was going to run regularly at full speed and talked them out of trying to contact Mr Wilford who was 'busy keeping everyone warm'.</p><p>
  <em>At least he wasn't there. He could hunt her only in her dreams, like Allie did. The thought that his frozen body might lie somewhere next to her little girl's made her want to scream.</em>
</p><p>Melanie didn't really notice when she stopped eating more than a protein bar a day. The first week of travel she ended up puking every time she tried to ingest something, the ever present knot that seemed to close her stomach too tight to let her really eat. Vomiting and cleaning herself up took time. She didn't had time to waste. Not eating meant not puking ergo she almost stopped eating. Problem solved. She would carry around some crackers or a bar to quickly ingest when she felt like she was about to faint, and that was pretty much it. It worked well for a while. If her mother had been there she would have fed her against her will if needed, like she did during the last month of building the train, when Melanie was so taken by the construction effort that she often forgot meals. But her mother wasn't there. In those first weeks everything was painful for everyone and no one apparently noticed the head of hospitality becoming more and more emaciated, not even the people working in the Engine with her, who watched her come 'home' in the middle of the first nocturnal shift and found her awake in her bunk bed when they came to call her for the second. Everyone was busy. Everyone was grieving. The train needed to keep running. Melanie needed to keep it functioning so she kept going. Until her body gave out.<br/>It was the 26th day of the first revolution of Snowpiercer, the outside temperature was of -97° C and the train was going faster than usual. Melanie was walking through second class to go check on the growing crops, her heels ticking on the lucid pavement. She had been sweating more than usual since she woke up from her 2 hours napandwastryingtohideher<span class="u"> discomfort </span>underaprofe<span class="u">ssional </span>mask<span class="u">. </span>Shewasabouttoreachthegatethat<span class="u"> separed second </span>andthirdclass<span class="u"> when </span>herheadstartedspinning. The woman had to stop and put a hand on the train's wall to support herself, a wave of nausea hitting her hard. She instinctively reached for a protein bar she remembered putting into the internal pockets of her jacket and find none.</p><p>
  <em>Shit. She forgot. How could she forget? </em>
</p><p>"Hey are you okay?" A voice said from behind her. A few seconds later a face entered her range of vision.<br/>"Melanie are you ok?" She asked again. It was Jinju. Melanie and her had been working together for a couple of years. Before the freeze they hung out often. They used to call each other friend. The head of hospitality hadn't seen her since they boarded.<br/>"Yeah<span class="u">, </span>I'mfine..." The woman answered trying to hide the fact that she was barely standing under a weak smile. It might have worked with someone else but Jinju knew her.<br/>"Yeah, right... Let's take you to my room, shall we?" The smaller woman said taking Melanie's arm and placing it over a shoulder to support her. As soon as she did Melanie's knees gave out putting all of her weight on Jinju's shoulders. The smaller woman had to almost drag her to her second class room, struggling to open the door and at the same time keep Melanie upright. After that Melanie's vision suddenly went black.</p><p>Flashes of consciousness in the dark. Whispering "no, please no." When Jinju said she was going to call a doctor. The feeling of being tucked into a bed. A fresh hand on her forehead. Bolting upright after a nightmare screaming that Wilford wasn't on the train and sobbing desperately her daughter's name as Jinju held her tight to try and stop her from trashing in bed. The other woman's voice screaming "And you did nothing?!" To someone on the other end of the train's phones. Then black again. Dark and warm, a dreamless bliss.</p><p>When she woke up she was still in Jinju's room. She was bundled tightly in the bed, a damp fresh cloth was resting on her forehead and her limbs felt so heavy she wasn't sure she could actually move. She tried anyway. As soon as she sat up in bed her head started spinning again.<br/>"Here, drink." Said Jinju almost materialising next to here and handing her a glass filled with some sort of juice. "You need liquids and sugars."<br/>Melanie took the glass and started sipping slowly, her eyes fixed on Jinju's ones, waiting for some sort of a reaction. Once she finished the glass she asked:<br/>"What time is it?"<br/>"It's 10 in the morning. You slept for almost a whole day."<br/>Melanie paled.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <em>A whole day. The train could have derailed while she slept, there could be all sort of problems in the Engine and down in third. What if first class took more that they were supposed to for lunch and now they were low on rations? She had to go, she had to check, everything needed to work...</em>
</p><p><br/>"Stop." Jinju's voice broke through her train of thoughts.<br/>"Everything is okay. There's no need for you to worry right now. I called Ruth, she said she could handle Hospitality's duties on her own for a while. She sounded worried and said that if you need a few days to rest she would be happy to cover you. After you said that thing about Wilford not being on the train..."<br/><em>Shit. She said that</em><span class="u"><em>,</em></span><em> didn't she?</em><br/>"... I also called the engine, where Mr. Knox told me he would gladly take your shifts if it meant you were going to sleep. He also told me that you've probably slept more today than since departure. I'm also pretty sure you're not eating as much as you should seeing how your body basically gave up on you." While she said that Melanie stopped looking at her in the eyes and started staring at her hands, which were fidgeting nervously.<br/>"I need to go." She whispered, her voice so low and tearful she barely recognized it. Jinju looked at her, something very similar to anger burning in her eyes.<br/>"You need to eat and sleep. You can't kill yourself with work." She said taking Melanie's hands.<br/>"Bennet explained me everything about Mr Wilford and the train. I know how vital you're to our survival. He asked me for help because he had no idea how to handle you. We understand why you don't want to stop and rest and we understand that working is your way to process grief but this isn't healthy. So if you're not going to take care of yourself I will. Because we need the bright engineer I met two years ago to survive, not her ghost. So right now you're taking a day off and we're going to eat two full meals, sleep at least 8 hours and talk."<br/>And they did. They talked, cried and laughed, they shared secrets and meditated together. It was only the start. When Melanie finally left the room they were bonded in a way they couldn't fully understand yet, still not knowing that if love would be difficult to find on Snowpiercer<span class="u">, </span>friendship would be almost impossible. Spending a few hours together every week became a habit. It kept them sane and healthy. It kept them connected. It kept them alive on Snowpiercer, 1001 cars long.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>